World number two Rory McIlroy carded an opening 70 to trail the leaders by five shots at the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow in North Carolina.
The 22-year-old, who can overhaul the absent Luke Donald at the top of the rankings with a top-seven finish, had four birdies in a two-under-par total.
World number three Lee Westwood and Tiger Woods both returned rounds of 71.
Americans Ryan Moore, Stewart Cink and Webb Simpson all reached seven under and are one shot ahead of the field.
McIlroy, who is 23 on Friday, won the tournament in 2010 but missed the cut last year.
The Northern Irishman, who faded to a share of 40th at the Masters at Augusta in April, three-putted the final green for his second bogey of the round.
"I feel the conditions were pretty perfect, there wasn't much wind and the greens were receptive so 70 probably wasn't good enough," he said.
"I struggled with the driver, didn't hit many fairways and if you do that round here you'll struggle to score."
Former Masters champion Phil Mickelson drove out of bounds on the fourth hole and racked up a triple bogey but recovered to an opening round of 71.
McIlroy turns 23 on Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment